Responding to God’s Voice

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Responding to God's Voice

James 1:19-25

When I was in China last fall, I met one of those men who had experienced a special visitation from God that I have heard about so often. He was farming in a field in a rural town in the 80s when the Spirit of God spoke to him and told him,' "The message about Jesus is true. Get a Bible and begin to read it." Almost as miraculously, he was able to locate a Bible and he began to read. Somewhere in the Gospel of John, he fell on his knees and placed his faith in Jesus. With this new faith in Jesus in his heart, he went out and told his family and friends what had happened and they believed in Jesus. Soon, there was a church – then 2 – then 3 and then many more. He told me, "We didn't have schools or seminaries. We didn't have books to teach us how to have a church. We didn't have any spiritual fathers to mentor us. So, as problems came, we read our Bibles and fell on our knees and asked the Holy Spirit to guide us. Now we have many more resources. But, whatever we may gain, we never want to forget that we need the Bible to be our main teacher and that we have the Holy Spirit to enable us to do what it teaches us."
This testimony came back to mind as I was reading James 1:18-25 this week. It strikes me that what this Chinese pastor gave witness too is exactly what James wrote his parishioners about as they were facing extreme trials of all kinds and were being tempted to denounce their faith or to be unfaithful to the Lord. I think we need to hear this message as much as they did. Last week, we took some time to talk about the fact that we face temptation because we are drawn by our own inward desire to go in wrong directions. James also provided the very concise but profound description of the process by which temptation beings with a thought or desire, leads into a specific act of sin, and then entraps. But today, James stakes us back to the place that this pastor in China took me, i.e., to the foundational truth that for a believer in Jesus, victory over sin begins by hearing God's Word and then being empowered by God's Spirit within to obey that Word.
So what we will consider today is the role of the Word of God to teach us and the necessity of the indwelling Holy Spirit to illuminate that Word and empower us to live by it.

#1: The Power of the "Word of Truth" to Make Us Alive (1:17-18, 21b)
Of our Father's own will he brought us forth by the word of truth...
One of the most important truths taught in the Bible is the role God has chosen to have words play in his creation. When God created, he created by speaking things into being.
Especially important for Jesus was the Word of Scripture. Not only did he quote it constantly but he even utilized it it in the most challenging of times of his life like in his temptation by Satan and while he was on the cross. He even shocked the religious leaders in John 5 when he declared that the Scriptures pointed to him for their fulfillment. And, once Jesus had been resurrected and the Holy Spirit given, good news is to be proclaimed to every people group through words. We are to teach the gospel of Jesus and preach the gospel of Jesus. In Romans 10, Paul insists that people will not come to faith without someone preaching the good news to them.
With all that in mind, you should not be surprised when I tell you that James tells us that one of the main gifts that God gives us to overcome trials and to have victory over temptation is God's Word. Among those who are younger in church today, I can imagine that you have a bit of caution thinking, "What you say may be true but we're not so sure. We've seen people go to church and take notes and we've heard church people talk about getting fed from the Word – but we haven't often seen that this changes people's lives very much." As one man told me in a seminary setting recently, "We all know that studying the Bible or hearing it preached doesn't contribute much to spiritual formation."
I think Pastor James of the 1st Church of Jerusalem who wrote the book of James would agree that this can surely happen. He knew some people said they believed but didn't live in ways consistent with their faith. James called that dead faith! But at the same time, he insisted that there is power in the Word of God when it is read and received as God intends it
Vv.17-18 are fascinating verses. In it, what James says is that our Heavenly Father called things into being in the first creation through the power of his words. He said, "Let there be light and there was light. Now, God is "calling us forth", bringing us from death to life, in the same way; i.e., by his "word of truth".
This phrase, "word of truth" always refers to the gospel in the New Testament. It is the good news message that tells us that Jesus is the Messiah, God's Son whose life, death and resurrection is the basis for us becoming God's children. This gospel always calls us to repent and believe the news about Jesus. Look at 1:21: Receiving the Jesus to whom this Word of truth points is what saves our souls. God's wonderful news is made known through words. It is revealed primarily through the Word of God.
I must ask all who listen to this sermon to think back to the time you first came to faith in Jesus – or to a significant time that God guided you or encouraged you. In my own experience, it has almost always been when I read or heard the Word of God. Most often, it has happened in the kind of setting that James was writing his letter for, i.e., for a worship gathering of the whole church. I think of that time when , after my Dad and Mom had become Christians, I heard a pastor open the Word of God and read John 3:16-17. I remember the power of thinking, "Yes, God loves the world – and that includes me." "Whosoever will may come to God" – and I'm one of those "whosoevers." "You don't have to perish" – and I was fully aware of the fact that I was in danger because of my sins. And I wept that what he asked me to do was simply to turn from my sins and trust him – "for God didn't send Jesus into this world to condemn me but to save me." I heard that. My heart began to race and I believed. I came alive to God through faith in Jesus – and the whole thing became real to me through the preaching of God's Word of Truth.
And, the Bible from that time on became more than it had been before. I still study it. As you know, when I preach, I seek to be faithful to it because when I am faithful to it, God empowers his Word to bring people from death to life. And let me tell you this too: One of the surest signs that a person truly has received Jesus is that we become alive to his Word. It once was just a book and now it becomes your lifeline. And, when you have received the Jesus to whom this Word points, you will that find that when I am faithful to what this Word says, you will be more receptive of it.
So, the Word of God is central to us becoming alive to God, but we might read and study that same Word of God without it having any spiritual or practical impact. How then should we read it?

#2: How to Receive the Word of Truth (1:22-25)
The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
I'm almost embarrassed to have to go over this part as quickly as I am – but James made the point briefly so I will try to follow his lead.
Key 1: In Your Mind – with intensity.
"Look intently (v.25)."
James tells us in v.19 that we must be "quick to listen and slow to speak." This is good counsel for any relationship, isn't it – and especially for our relationship to God and his Word. The word James used for how we listen to God's Word is an interesting one katanoeo. It means to notice carefully or to scrutinize from every vantage point possible. It's the word used for how Mary and Peter looked into the tomb to find the resurrected Jesus. They looked everywhere, with energy and a deep desire to comprehend.
So, James is saying that we should look intently and carefully at Scripture to see if there is anything it says that we might miss. He goes on to use the illustration of looking in a mirror, seeing what is not quite right, taking it seriously, and contemplating what might be done to change the situation. When you read your Bible or when you come to church and the sermon begins say, "Lord, I must make sure that I am hearing your Word correctly and that I am hearing there what you would have me to understand." You dare not come and slouch in your chair and allow your mind to wander. Make sure your mind is alert and you read and listen with intensity.

Key 2: In your heart – with respect for it and the humility to surrender to it.
"Humbly accept the Word (v.21)"
In V.25, James calls the word of truth the "perfect law." We don't like laws and rules very much, do we? And James also seemed to anticipate the his church people would have a reaction that saws, "Laws! We don't like rules!" He quickly said, "God's perfect law is the law that gives liberty."
And, of course, some rules are like straight jackets – they keep us from enjoying life. But, the instructions in the Bible are called the "perfect law." They are good. They describe life as our Creator created it to be lived. It is, indeed, God's Word. As such, when we open it, is should be a rather awe inspiring endeavor. "What will God say?", we should ask. "I have made a commitment to live His way what will He say?"
And when you come to hear a sermon and God's Word is being taught, you should first ask, "Is this really what God is saying?" It really is rather dangerous to hear a sermon or to do a Bible Study because God may something that you are responsible to live out. But how often is the attitude, "Ho, hum. Another sermon. I've read this before." No, if God's Word will make a difference in your life, you must be prepared to receive it as His perfect Word.
When you do, the result will be that you are ready to have it shape your life. See v.21."Humbly accept the Word." James knows all too well that pride can hinder our acceptance of God's Word. Like a filter, it can sift out all those things the Bible may want to say to us that we don't want to hear.
"Be humble when you open God's Word," says James. Be humble enough to stand in awe of God. Be humble enough to face up to the awful truth you sometimes see when you look in the mirror of Scripture and assess your life by its standards. When we read the Word, we must come with willingness – even a desire – to be shaped by it.

Key 3: In your will – with complete consecration
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves (v.22).
A faith that is real shouts its authenticity when the Word changes our lives. And fake religion can't be covered up long. James says the hallmark of genuine Christian faith is that we who name Jesus as savior read the Bible and discover what he wants of us. Then, we go out each day into the struggles when the single desire to please the Lord.
The one who is alive to God's Word approaches it with a deep desire to learn from it and to apply it. We go to church, not looking for some art form that speaks to our heart's language, but to understand our Father and to live the way he teaches us to live.
I will speak more about this last point next week when we look at the application James makes of this point to issues like anger, our speech, and care for the poor. Let me leave this point at this: You can hear God's Word and simply have your mind informed by it. Or, you can hear it and find it to be both life-giving and life-changing. I am calling you on the authority of this Word to open you mind, your heart and your will to whatever this Word says. If you do, you will be blessed. You will begin to live a life of shalom.
What did the Psalmist say? "How does a young person keep his way pure? By taking heed according to God's Word!" "The Law of the Lord is perfect, more to be desired than gold, even than much fine gold."

#3: The Power of the Word of Truth to Set Us Free from Sin (1:19-21)
Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (1:21).
In the Old Testament, people had God's Word in their hands and heard it in their services but their lives were not changed by it. Temptation came and they consistently gave in to the temptation. So, God promised a day when he would plant his ways into our lives in such a way that we would begin to be able to both hear it and obey it. Do you see the phrase in v. 21? "Implanted Word." Behind this phrase is a marvelous promise found in Jeremiah 31:
The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with (my people), not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke.. This is the covenant that I will make: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people... (Jr 31:31-33).
James is saying here that this promise is being fulfilled now. What I believe he is referring to is what my pastor friend in China gave testimony to: When we are made alive to God through faith in Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit within, the Spirit who enables us to receive the word of truth and to live by the word of truth. The promise is that this work within our souls will continue until, as James says in v.21, the salvation of our souls is complete and we are "mature, complete, and lacking nothing (1:4)."
When Jesus was about to go to the cross to die in our place and for our sins, he told his disciples in Jn 14 that it was good for them that he leave. They must have asked, "How can that be?" Listen to Jesus words:
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (Jn 14:16-18).
What I want you to see today is that what Jesus promised us as his gift was a person – a person who is God himself. Read through John 14-16 and you will see that Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will be God and yet a different person from God the Father. He will be like Jesus – even to the point that Jesus said "I will come to you" -- but he will be a different person from Jesus. The Holy Spirit will be a helper. He will never leave you. He will, as Jesus said so poignantly, "Dwell with you and live in you." It is this Spirit who is implanted in us and illuminates Scripture to us. It is the Spirit who makes us alive to God and who empowers us to be able to breaks from bonds of sin.
The church Father, Ignatius, the martyr, used to call himself Theophorus, or Godbearer, "because," said he, "I bear about with me the Holy Spirit." And truly every Christian is a Godbearer. John 14:17b: "You know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you." When you receive Jesus into your life as your Savior, he gives his Spirit to dwell with you and live in you!
This gift implanted within you changes everything. Specifically, it gives you the power to live in freedom and victory when you face a temptation that has entrapped you. Yes, the Holy Spirit moves God's children toward holiness. Listen to the words of Charles Spurgeon:
You cannot tell what the wondrous power of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost is; how it pulls back the hand of God's child when he would touch the forbidden thing; how it prompts him to make a covenant with his eyes; how it binds his feet, lest they should fall in a slippery way; how it restrains his heart, and carries him through temptation.

My pastor friend in China said, "Whatever resources we may have, we never want to forget that we need the Bible to be our main teacher and that we have the Holy Spirit to enable us to do what it teaches us."
God has entrusted to you his Word. Read it. Read it intently. Read it humbly. Read it with a longing to obey it. Get yourself a reading plan and begin reading God's Word each day. And when we read the Word here and I open it up, listen. Listen for the voice of God. Listen with a heart of gratitude.
And God has given you his Spirit who will illuminate God's Word to you and give you strength to break from sin and obey that Word. You are Theophorus. You are a God-bearer. If you have received Jesus as savior, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling with you and living in you.
In his power, go and live in freedom – to his glory.

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor